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Beginnings Again

Letting go of our pain is not an overnight affair, but the process quickly gains momentum. It’s a little like water moving through a hole in a dam. First there is just a trickle, then a flow, then before you know it, there is a torrent.

-Rolf Gates, Meditations from the Mat: Reflections on the Daily Path of Yoga

Day 290 – Today’s reading is about new beginnings. I love new beginnings. I love when something occurs to me and it is fresh and exciting and worthy of contemplation. I love a challenge that is green and fresh. I like to root for the underdog and step on the side of the marginalized. I love the whole process of learning something new, but…

In today’s reading, Rolf writes about pratyahara as beginnings. Not unlike the podcast I listened to (and took to heart) regarding the work of self-acceptance, self-examination is not an easy task. Rolf says the miraculous part is the “trickle stage.” He writes: “It’s the addict’s first few months of sobriety, the battered woman leaving home for good, the forty-something businessperson leaving a job and going to medical school. It’s about picking up the pieces after a great loss. It’s trying again after a bitter failure.”

So maybe I shouldn’t be asking what next of myself? Maybe I should just throw myself into all the things I love with abandon?